Paint Can

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. It's that time of year again. Ho, ho, ho. Yep, you guessed it, time to paint the friggin' front door. To honor what is probably the last can of oil based house paint in the entire State of California, I thought I would immortalize it in... well, oil paint. The brush was not originally in the painting. The whole thing was done, but the composition bothered me with its almost centered subject, so the brush was added to help balance it out. It is probably obvious, but I will type it any way, the door is blue.
Posted December 22, 2009
click here to view the eBay auction for this painting

Another Vineyard's Edge

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. This vineyard is across the road from the one I previously painting. What caught my eye was not the vines with all of their autumnal colors, but the light streaming through the gaps in the hedgerow. At this time of the morning, the shadows just reached the vines. This is the last in this series of landscapes and aren't you happy it's not a barn?
Posted December 17, 2009
click here to view the eBay auction for this painting

Barns on Orcutt Road #2

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. I wanted to paint these barns without the vines in front, so you will have to suffer with another painting of them. I could apologize, but I'm not going to.
Posted December 15, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Barns out on Orcutt Road #1

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. You can't help but notice these barns when driving along Orcutt Road (the back way into San Luis Obispo). The side of the road goes like this: vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, ranch, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, vineyard, etc. Just a sliver of this small ranch now makes its way down to the road, so here it is with a section of vineyard in the foreground. It seemed a nice juxtaposition with the autumnal colors of the vines and the moon like surface of this ranch lot. When painting these landscapes I have been experimenting by bringing different greens onto my palette. Sap green, cadmium green, permanent green... it's been a fun trial with some obvious evidence displayed in the foreground.
Posted December 10, 2009
private collection san jose, ca

Vineyard's Edge

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. When driving down the back roads around San Luis Obispo in the fall, you are struck by the fields of beautiful colors that seem to go on forever. If you don't pay close attention, they appear to be flowing fields of flowers, but they are actually vineyards. A vineyards autumn colors are strikingly beautiful and varied – yellows, golds, russets, reds, oranges and a little green left over for good measure. These fields are diabolically dangerous for an artist. I knew a hapless artist (who shall remain nameless), who once almost drove his truck into a drainage ditch gawking at these fields. Don't worry, the truck's fine.
Posted December 9, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Barn out on Lopez Drive #2

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. This is actually the same barn as in my last post, just from a different angle and orientation. I chose the vertical format to amplify the rolling hills and vineyard that surround this little pocket farm. The corn in the last painting is off to the right and the russet and yellow you see behind the barn are the enveloping vineyard. For this painting the hills and vineyard, in a sense, set up a stage for the barn. It's impromptu theater and I had to give it a try.
Posted December 8, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Barn out on Lopez Drive

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. Barns have been catching my eye lately. This one is on a farm surrounded by rolling hills and Talley Vineyards. Everything has been harvested except those rows of corn with their yellow tops cutting across the painting. The recently harvested fields reminded me of the color of chocolate - milk, not dark.
Posted December 3, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Barn in Corbett Canyon

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. I have a few landscapes for you. What can I say? It is a result of me being let out of my box. I have driven by this old barn hundreds of times and never really paid much attention to it. Ah, but now I am a daily painter, keeping my eyes peeled for just such subjects. It is wonderful when you realize how beautiful something like an old horse barn can be. That is part of the daily painting process: slow down, pay attention to what's around you and notice more - see more.
Posted December 2, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

The Evil Acorn

6"x4" oil on raymar panel.

Our Players -
Acorn - A Seed with a Dubious Past
Thing One - A Perpetrator
Thing Two - An Innocent
Spousal Unit - A Goddess
Artist - The Author and Lowly Wretch

Our Scene - Wilderness around Grandma's House

I do not know when the acorn turned to the dark side. But, I suspect it was when Thing One unceremoniously beaned Thing Two with it. It was a blatant attack; Thing One did not even employ the famous ambuscade technique so favored by the local tribes. A lonely seed used for such a nefarious purpose, without any further counsel, could easily turn to evil. All I really can tell you for sure is, that upon confiscation of said projectile, the Spousal Unit said to the Artist, in her melodious song of a voice, "Stop Laughing! Here, paint this!" So here it is, in all of its evilness, rendered in oils for your consideration.

(The story above illustrates my inability to explain why this particular oak tree seemed to produce only one dark acorn AND how I am not in the mood to write about painting today.)
Posted December 1, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Still Life Landscape #6

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. I keep coming back to these still life landscapes. They inflict decisions of simplifying on me that I find quite appealing. In the future, I might try increasing, maybe doubling, the subject matter to really force the issue. Who knew painting was so masochistic?
Posted November 24, 2009
private collection san jose, ca

Pipe and Mug

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. Do you know how hard it is to balance a pipe on the rim of a mug? Well, it is. This painting comes down to composition and an artist toying with it. Even the shadows and lighting were made to yield to the composition. It's Monday and that's all I am writing.
Posted November 23, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Euryops in Votive Vase

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. Unless you know what a euryops is, this painting looks like a big yellow flower in a normal drinking glass. The co-opted vase is actually a votive candle holder measuring only about 2-1/2" tall – basically, a wide shot glass. The little euryops flower, or African daisy as some people call it, is from a couple of bushes that won't stop blooming, no matter how much a hack at them. The painting employs an obvious abuse of complementary colors - I hope you don't mind.
Posted November 19, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

White Tea Bowl and Stuff

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. Yes, I have been to the thrift store. Anyway... I know the lighting on this is very important and all that, but it was the challenge of the composition that I relished on this painting. Sometimes I start a painting thinking that I have the composition down, but more often than not, things just have to morph and this painting was no exception. All of the subjects in this painting were moved at sometime while I was painting. That's what's great about oil paint: It's alive and can change.
Posted November 18, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)

Lonely Lemon Half

4"x6" oil on raymar panel. A lemon's translucence makes it tricky to paint. Light enters the middle of the lemon and bounces around making values tough to judge. Just as with dark hues, you have to slow down and really look at what's going on. Since the usual challenge is values, it sometimes helps to squint. Of course, the most scientific method is to just get up, take a good long look at the painting, slowly walk back in forth in front of the easel, and then... go get a mug of coffee. Hey, works for me.
Posted November 17, 2009
private collection beverly hills. ca

White Mug

6"x4" oil on raymar panel. White mugs are great subjects because when you hit them with light, you soon realize there is very little white to be had. To push this effect, I back lit the this mug, almost completely eliminating the white. It then becomes just a party of grays, or if you prefer – mud.
Posted November 13, 2009
$99 (click on green dot to purchase)